"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favor me with your company."

Lady Catherine de Bourgh to Elizabeth Bennet
from Chapter LVI
of Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen

There are those who believe that Lady Catherine was yet again being condescending when she referred to the "wilderness" at one side of the lawn at Longbourn. But in actual fact, her condescension was in the use of the word "little" and the implication that the Bennet's lawn was not as grand as her own estate at Rosings.

The enclosed wilderness at Mr. Rushworth's estate of Sotherton Court is a point of discussion and the setting for some interesting interchanges between various characters in Chapters IX and X of Mansfield Park. The author of both these novels, Jane Austen, was well aware that a garden wilderness was not open country when she wrote these novels. She knew that a wilderness was a common feature of many of the larger English gardens during the Regency, just as it had been for at least a century prior to the publication of her books.

Many of these garden wildernesses were related to the evolution of the garden maze. For that reason, this article takes its place as another in my series on mazes. And now, a wilderness adventure ...

[Read More!]

Or, perhaps the panorama can be considered the Regency version of the IMAX or even the holodeck. The panorama was first introduced in London in the late eighteenth century and quickly spread across Europe. These enormous paintings became a popular form of entertainment throughout England and the Continent during the Regency. Yet I have never read a Regency novel in which a panorama plays any part.

A brief history of the origin of the panorama ...

[Read More!]

Earlier this year I wrote a brief history of the maze. I promised to write in more detail about the two most prominent forms of the maze during the English Regency. This week I will concentrate on a maze form which certainly existed during the Regency, though I have yet to see one mentioned in a novel set during that time.

The English turf maze, its origins, its construction and its uses up to and during the Regency ...

[Read More!]

What could there possibly be to say about the hanging of paintings? One simply hangs them on the wall, ensures they are relatively straight and is done with it. Not really. The way paintings were hung in public art galleries during the Regency is not the same as the way paintings are hung in art galleries and museums in modern times. Should someone from the Regency walk into a museum today, they would be shocked at what they would perceive as the poor use of the space. However, most artists from the Regency would much prefer the way paintings are now typically hung in most galleries and museums.

The display of paintings in Regency art galleries and the now antiquated practice of skying ...

[Read More!]

The garden maze has made numerous appearances in a plethora of Regency novels. Often it is the setting for a clandestine romantic tryst or sometimes it is the secret meeting place for the villain and his or her henchman. But regardless of its use, the Regency garden maze was the end of a long tradition of mazes and labyrinths dating back to that very first one, at the Palace of Knossos, designed by Daedalus, in which Theseus vanquished the Minotaur.

A brief tracing of the path of the labyrinth and the maze from Crete to the English Regency pleasure garden ...

[Read More!]

The theatres of the Regency did not only glitter with the talents of the great actors who trod their boards. They also glittered with the presence of the many members of the beau monde who flocked to the nightly performances during the season. But more germane to the subject of this article, they glittered with light, all the time. The house lights were never dimmed during a performance in any theatre auditorium in Regency England.

Despite the many instances in scores of Regency romance novels I have read over the years in which the theatre house lights dim and some form of seduction ensues in the darkness, it could not have happened. It was physically and technically impossible to dim the house lights of any theatre auditorium during the years of the Regency. And theatre-goers would have been appalled at the very notion. They came to the theatre to see and be seen. The play itself was secondary to the performances going on in the stalls and private boxes.

[Read More!]